Chapter 19 - The Price of Absolute Devotion
"Aiden, stop!" my voice rang out across the devastated operating theater.
Aiden froze.
His muscles remained locked in lethal tension, his fingers still wrapped around the throat of the man who had destroyed his childhood.
I walked forward slowly, stepping over the shattered glass and spent shell casings, ignoring the smoke burning my eyes.
I didn't touch his weapon.
I reached out and placed my bare, warm palm flat against his chest, right over his pounding heart.
"Look at me, Aiden," I said softly, my voice trembling with raw love.
Aiden's eyes shifted from Vittorio’s choking face to mine.
The wild, murderous storm in his irises raged against the profound gentleness in my touch.
"He wants you to kill him like a beast," I whispered, holding his gaze.
"He wants to prove that his cage broke your soul forever."
"Don't give him that victory."
"You are not his weapon."
"You are my husband."
Aiden breathed in sharply, a violent shudder wracking his massive shoulders.
The crimson fog cleared from his eyes, replaced by an ocean of clarity and deep, sorrowful humanity.
Slowly, deliberately, Aiden lowered his arm.
Vittorio hit the floor in a pathetic heap, coughing violently, clutching his crushed windpipe as he gasped for air.
Aiden tossed the captured remote detonator to me without looking down at the broken tyrant.
"Marcus," Aiden spoke into his collar comm.
"The primary threat is neutralized."
"Breach the pediatric wing, secure the canisters, and call our trauma team for the hostages."
The heavy fire doors hissed open as Marcus and a dozen armed operators flooded into the operating suite.
Marcus immediately locked heavy steel restraints onto Vittorio’s wrists and hauled him to his feet.
"What do we do with him, Boss?" Marcus asked, glaring at the scarred criminal with disgust.
Aiden turned his back on Vittorio, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me tightly against his side.
"Hand him over to the federal authorities along with Clara’s antidote ledger and twenty years of Valenti financial records," Aiden said calmly.
"Let him spend the rest of his miserable life in a federal supermax cell, watching his empire rot from behind bars."
Vittorio snarled, spitting blood onto the linoleum as Marcus dragged him out into the corridor.
James was kneeling in the corner, clutching his bleeding arm, weeping into the floor.
Aiden paused before the young man, looking down with cold disappointment.
"You betrayed this family, James," Aiden said quietly.
"Boss... please," James sobbed. "My mother... my sister..."
"Marcus already sent a team to Chicago two hours ago," Aiden revealed coldly.
"Your family was extracted from the safe house forty minutes before we breached this building."
"They are safe at my estate in Lake Geneva."
James looked up, stunned disbelief washing over his tear-streaked face.
"You... you saved them even after what I did?"
"I saved them because they are innocent," Aiden replied, turning away.
"You, however, will face syndicate exile."
"If you ever step foot west of the Rocky Mountains again, you will not leave alive."
May you like
Aiden didn't wait for an answer.
He led me through the shattered double doors, out of the darkness of the hospital, and into the cool, rain-washed dawn of Seattle.
